<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>This is what it feels like by orphan_account</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23775046">This is what it feels like</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo is a Mess, F/M, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Fluffy Ending, Happy Ending, Mentions of Pregnancy, Post canon, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey Needs A Hug, Rey Palpatine, Reylo Baby, padme is mentioned - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:07:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,587</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23775046</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>*Reupload*<br/>Rey and Ben run from the aftermath of Exegol and start to reconstruct a life together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey &amp; Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>This is what it feels like</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Howdy!<br/>This is a reupload as I wasn't happy with how the layout was last time soooo here we are<br/>I really want to have at least three chapters for this but I'm super bad at keeping my own promises lmao<br/>I struggle a lot with writing so I really hope I don't give up<br/>Feel free to yell at me if I do abandon it okok</p>
<p>Thanks for reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey was alive.</p>
<p>Aching, but breathing and so very alive.</p>
<p>Alive, in the arms of the man who saved her.</p>
<p>Ben was bewildered, his hair plastered to his face in disarray. Sweat clung to his forehead. His arms, aching and screaming for bacta, grasped her body tightly in his lap.</p>
<p>“Ben… you’re here…” Rey started. Her hands were shaking, but she couldn’t tell if it was from shock or the adrenaline coursing through her. She came to the conclusion it was a combination of both. Her palm grazed the side of his face with a gentleness and fondness she didn’t know she possessed as her hand came to rest on her cheek. He flinched so slightly, body tensing, she noticed his breath hitch, from years of lacking affection. Rey pushed her love and warmth through their bond. Ben noticeably relaxed.</p>
<p>“You’re alive…” He murmured, eyes full of love and concern. Tears threatened to burst, but despite his pain coursing through his leg, ribs, he smiled. A smile full of love, adoration and relief. Rey mirrored him, her cheeks stretching into a grin that met ear to ear. </p>
<p>Amidst their joy, she pressed forward to kiss his lips.</p>
<p>Ben is sure his heart might explode when Rey, wonderful Rey, threads her hands through his scruffy hair to pull them closer. The force was singing, alive and rich, rich with balance and love and a promise of a brighter future.</p>
<p>For the dozen seconds their lips were connected, the force was calm. When the two separated, the calmness remained. </p>
<p>Mere minutes ago, Exogol was a haven of death and misery, the walls flanked with the late Emperors cultists. Death and destruction lingered in the air, the toxicity of the dark side suffocating those who dared cross. Now, it sung with the promise of life and light and love the one true natural dyad had brought to the galaxy.<br/>Across from Rey, who was still curled against Ben, a flower bud broke through the rigid ground. It curled and twisted, and reached for the sun that shone through the crater in the ceiling. <br/>As Rey and Ben shared a tender moment, life bloomed across the once death-ridden plains of the Sith planet. Plants emerged from every crack, every crevice and every cranny. Vines crawled and clambered up the side of the fallen statues, crept up the floor towards Ben and Rey, and around the ceiling. Rey gasped, seeing the new life that was blooming.</p>
<p>She rested her head upon Bens chest, revelling in the rise and fall that happened with each laboured breath he took. Bens chin slotted perfectly against her head as they watched the life bloomed around them. Their breaths fell in sync, calm and collected. <br/>“What now?” Rey murmured. She knew they couldn’t return to Ajan Kloss hand in hand. Not many had seen Ben without the mask in person, but his face was still recognisable. Ben hummed in response, but she felt his emotion through their bond. </p>
<p>“Ben, there’s something I need to talk to you about…” Rey, gently as she could, pushed herself off of his huge body to sit by his side. “When we touched hands… this is what I saw. I saw the force, balanced, in harmony.”</p>
<p>“Did you... see this?” Ben chided, a soft smirk on his cheeky face. </p>
<p>“If you’re asking if I saw us kiss… then yes I did. But there’s more that I saw.”</p>
<p>Ben shifted his body toward to her, his demeanour changing as he tried to read her face. </p>
<p>“I saw us… after this. We were safe and happy. There was…” she stuttered, words catching the edge of her throat as she scrambled to find the right phrase. </p>
<p>“Kids? Yea I saw them too… it frightened me.” Ben explained.</p>
<p>Rey blinked once, and twice, absorbing his words.</p>
<p>The lump in her throat grew and tears spilled from her eyes. Her cheeks reddened, chest heaving with laboured breaths.</p>
<p>“I want that… one day…” she sobbed to him. It was all she pined over the past year. The longing, the wanting and missing a family she never had. The opportunity was right there, for the both of them. The future looked bright.</p>
<p>Ben pulled her head towards his until their foreheads met in the middle.</p>
<p>“Me too… It’s all I think about.  A life with you… it’s what I saw too.” He murmured.</p>
<p>Rey laughed lightly; her forehead bobbed against Bens. Her tears still dripped down her face. </p>
<p>“I’m glad we’re on the same page.”</p>
<p>Their laughs mingled for a short moment, before a comfortable silence fell over the two. <br/>Rey pulled her legs up beside his body, which was still sat awkwardly, and let her hands drift to lay on his chest. She noticed the loose-fitting sweater, now stained with blood and sweat, and noticed the hole in the lower half. “Is that where I uhh...” She trailed off, realising the event that had led to the hole in his sweater. She recalled the moment the darkness took over- she was blinded by the rage she felt, it twisted and writhed in her mind and in her fury, she had struck at a man who was unarmed and grief-stricken. <br/>As she recalled the situation, horror thawed over her. She had almost killed him. The man who went on to save her own life had almost been taken from her by her own hand and his own weapon.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ben…  I’m so sorry. I can’t put it into words how terrible I feel.” She started, finding she couldn’t meet his gaze as her throat stung and tears welled. Refusing to meet his eyes, she fiddled with her nails, cracked and dirtied, when she felt a tug on her hair. The three buns she had once worn were strewn out over her shoulders in a hap hazardous display of matted hair, the hair ties lost somewhere in the mess. Ben’s finger sifted through from the base of her neck, nimble yet thick fingers pushing and weaving their way through with gentle precision. Although her gaze was still cast down at her hands, his own was fixed on her face, a gentle expression cast over his features. His fingers caught a knot in her hair and she winced, glancing up to him. He cocked his head lightly at the sight of her tear stained face, silently sobbing.<br/>“Rey it’s okay. You showed me compassion like no one else. The darkness can be blinding, I know. But you helped me realise how wrong I was. And I’m here and I’m okay. I promise.” Ben whispered, his fingers sifting through her locks to tilt her head up lightly. “We’re both okay now.” </p>
<p>As if on que, despite the rest of him being okay, Ben’s very broken leg decided to give a lighting jolt up his thigh. He clenched his teeth together, brows furrowed as he tried to move it. Rey’s expression turned from saddened to shock, the realisation coming to her.<br/>“We have to get you somewhere where they have bacta to treat that. It looks really bad.” She told him.</p>
<p>“Yea, no. We can’t go back to the resistance. At least, I can’t.” </p>
<p>“But I can, and I could also convince the- “</p>
<p>“Rey you know they’ll force you to tell them what happened. They’ll find out about Palpatine at some point. They’ll find out about you being a Palpa- “</p>
<p>“No. I’m not him. That’s not the name I’ve searched for all these years. I won’t tell them anything.”</p>
<p>Ben sighed. </p>
<p>“I don’t have a plan. I don’t know what we should do now.” Rey muttered, pushing her now slightly less messy hair onto her shoulder.</p>
<p>Ben thought for a moment. “I know a place we could go…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Flying in Luke’s X-Wing was more than a struggle. Despite the lack of a cape and thick armour, Ben was still a very tall, very wide human, who dwarfed Rey as she sat, almost perched in his lap in front of him. She refused to let him pilot, he had taken quite a hit and she worried he would drift in and out of consciousness again mid-flight. She tried her best not to wiggle on his lap, scared to make him uncomfortable, but it was a tight fit for both of them. She took his occasional grimaces as pain from his leg rather than her body being pushed up against his own in the most intimate way.</p>
<p>“Where should I enter the coordinates for?” Rey quizzed him, passing a glance over her shoulder.</p>
<p>Ben hesitated for a moment, noticing the way her eyes reflected the scenery that passed them outside the glass window and how her pupils widened when she saw him. It made his heart flutter, a strange feeling for the ex-supreme leader of the galaxy, but it made him smile with a joy he didn’t know he possessed. <br/>“It’s a place I own through inheritance. My mother lived there for a short while, but the significance lies with my grandparents. They got married there, in complete secrecy. Funny when you consider who my grandfather turned out to be.” </p>
<p>Rey nodded in acknowledgement; a smile cracked on her face. She leant up to place a small kiss on his cheek. </p>
<p>Ben hesitated for a moment, hoping to the maker Rey would like where they were heading. It meant an awful lot to his family and him, and he hoped he could hare the place with his partner in their future together.</p>
<p>“Set course for Naboo.”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>